The Shadow Team
by AkiLynn
Summary: When the Titans face a criminal team with similarities to their own, they have their work cut out for them. But when a new super villain comes into the picture, do the Titans have what it takes to defeat him or do they need help from an unlikely source.
1. Chapter 1

**Well, I got writer's block for all my other stories and I can't get rid of this story no matter how hard I try. So I gave in and just decided to write it. If I actual stick with this story, it's going to be a trilogy so expect a lot in the future if I decide to stick with it. There's not much OCs besides the new team, but other than that it's pretty straightforward. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans.**

Chapter 1: New Guys on the Block

The Teen Titans were enjoying a carefree morning as the sun rose for the promise of a great new day. Cyborg was making breakfast with Beast Boy making his vegetarian alternative that only he'd be eating. Raven was mediating in her usual spot and Starfire and Robin were watching T.V. on the couch, waiting for breakfast.

"Alright, ya'll!" Cyborg boomed, "Cyborg's ultimate breakfast creation is ready to go!"

"And my tofu version is ready, too!" Beast Boy said, holding up his dish.

"Man, no one wants to eat that!"

"Come on, guys! It's just tofu. It's not going to kill you."

"Sorry, Beast Boy, but I'm going to have to go with Cyborg here," Robin said. The two girls nodded their heads in agreement.

Beast Boy huffed indignantly, "Fine. More for me then."

Breakfast thankfully went by with nothing too crazy, just the regular food fight. Afterwards the group resorted to their usual game of rock-paper-scissors to decide on who was left with kitchen clean up. Beast Boy, much to his carnage, lost and looked over the mountain of dishes and the disaster that was the kitchen.

"Aw, man!" Beast Boy whined, "THIS is going to take me all day!"

"Better get to work, little man," Cy jeered. Beast Boy only hung his head lower. He made his way over to the kitchen. He barely touched a stack of dishes when his belt lit up and the sirens in the tower blared to life.

Robin looked at his team, "Trouble."

As they left the tower, Beast Boy cheered, "Looks like I won't have time to be doing dishes today!"

"They'll be here when you get back," Raven said, putting up her hood. Beast Boy only complained as they ran out of the tower.

-00000-

At the Jump City Museum, the Titans found the H.I.V.E Five robbing the place. The five criminals looked up and smirked. Gizmo scoffed, "Hey, look, guys. It's the Bird Brain and his gang of losers." The rest of the group laughed as the Titans glared at them.

"How did you escape?" Robin demanded, taking out his bo staff.

"Wouldn't you like to know," Gizmo sneered, "Let's get them, guys!"

"Titans, GO!" Robin called out, and the battle raged on.

-00000-

After the fight with the H.I.V.E., the Titans went out for pizza and discussed what they learned from the criminals.

"So, someone managed to thaw out all of the villains of the Brotherhood," Raven stated.

"But only some were thawed out," Cyborg said, "The original Brotherhood and some others were left frozen."

"This is a most troublesome problem," Starfire mused, "Robin, what do you think?"

Robin hadn't spoken a word after the fight. His mind was struggling to find an answer as to who could have thawed out the villains. Also, he wondered why. He assumed that, whomever it was, that they were going to come after them. Why else thaw out the enemies of the Teen Titans? But why leave the Brotherhood? Did they not want actual competition or did they simply not get along? It was driving him nuts.

"I don't know, Star," Robin said, "But I have a bad feeling about it."

"Dudes, relax!" Beast Boy chimed in, "Whoever unfroze those guys obviously isn't smart. I mean, why unfreeze those guys? Besides, we defeated the Brotherhood. We can beat anyone."

They all stared at Beast Boy in shock. "What?" Beast Boy asked, nervous.

"You just actual said something that made sense," Cyborg said. The others nodded.

"Hey!" Beast Boy yelled as the others laughed. None of them notice that they were being watched.

-00000-

After pizza, the Titans had decided to spend the rest of the day at the park. They were there all day and it was nightfall by the time they left. They were about to get in the T-car when a beeping noise caught their attention. They looked up at Robin, who simply said, "Trouble."

On the other side of the city, the Titans found a number of troops lying on the ground outside a high security lab. The lab itself had a massive hole in the wall with sirens ringing all over the place. Robin ran up to one that was still conscious and asked what happened.

"We were ambushed. I didn't get a good look, but there are four of them. They're going after the Isoca Security System."

"Where is that?" Robin said only to hear a voice coming from the gap in the wall.

"Seriously, what a bunch of weaklings. I thought there was going to be a challenge this time."

The voice was a female drawl, as if the woman who owned it was bored out of her mind. A second voice responded to hers, a male, "Well, Neb. It would have been a real challenge if you weren't so bent on charging in everywhere, and snuck in instead of blasting your way in."

"Oh, shut it, geek!" The woman's voice snapped back as a giggle could be heard. "You too, Circe!"

A much more girly voice responded, still giggling, "What? It's so much fun when you guys fight amongst yourselves."

Before the first voice could retaliate, another man's voice came in, "Hey, guys, looks like we got some company."

Four figures came out of the gap in the wall where they stopped and looked at the Titans. The Titans had to blink a few times before they fully grasped what they saw. First was a girl that looked incredibly like Starfire's older sister, Blackfire. They had the same eyes and black hair with the look of a Tamaranean, but this girl's hair had long bangs and an even more casual version of a Tamaranean outfit than Starfire's: A single strap crop top and a short skirt as well as thigh length boots and gloves that ran up to her shoulder on her right side and a elbow length one on her left, all black and sliver. She was looking over them with mild interest.

Next to her, was a man with spiky bright red hair with three short strands of hair serving as bangs in the middle of his hairline. He had silver eyes and wore a black and red jumpsuit. He looked excited and eyed the group like a dog viewed a toy. On the other side of the girl was another man. He had black hair and wore glasses, which he pushed up to his bridge as he inspected the group before them. He wore what looked like a private school uniform. Judging by the expression he wore, he didn't really care that the Titans were there.

Lastly, there was a petite girl with big, bushy dirty blond hair pulled back in long pigtails. She had bright red eyes that glinted in absolute delight as she saw the Titans. She wore a dull, multicolored tribal dress with knee high brown boots and multicolored tube gloves. Also, she wore a battered cloak that was held in place by a skull pin.

What was common among the group was that they all looked to be in their early twenties. Robin looked and saw that the black hair man held a large case, most likely containing the security chip.

"Who the hell are you?" the red head asked.

"We're the Teen Titans. So it be best to drop the case and surrender," Robin stated with force.

A look of realization appeared on their faces for a brief moment before being replaced by an excited one. The Tamaranean looking girl laughed in excitement, "So you're the Teen Titans we've heard so much about. Looks like this job just got interesting."

Without warning, the four sprang after the Titans at full force. The Tamaranean girl went straight after Starfire and landed a punch that sent her flying into a wall. As Starfire shook her head in disorientation, the girl came up to her smirking.

"Is this the best the princess of Tamaran can do? Pathetic."

"You- you are a Tamaranean as well?" Starfire asked as she got back up.

The girl smirked, "I am. I just went through the Dark Transformation like your older sister: the rare Transformation that channels dark energy instead of light energy. Which means I'm stronger than you."

Starfire fired a starbolt at the girl, which surprised her and blasted her back a few feet. "You are not."

The girl got back up, "We'll see about that." The two continued their battle in the air.

As the two Tamaraneans fought fiercely in the sky, the others fought on the ground. Beast Boy changed into a bull and charged at the red head, whom suddenly gained what looked like bat wings and flew over the green bull. Beast Boy stopped changed back and turned to the red head, whom hover above him.

"So, what? You can have bat wings," Beast Boy asked.

The red head smiled, "No, I can do much more than that." The man swooped down at Beast Boy, who changed into a hawk just in time to dodge razor sharp claws that came at him. _So he can change into animals too, well sort of. _Beast Boy then noticed that he had the claws and wings at the same time. _That's not fair._ The two changelings continued their fight.

Beside the two shape shifters, Raven was struggling against the petite girl. It turned out that she was a witch and was throwing powerful spells at the dark spell caster. Raven blocked the spells and in a wave of dark energy, she called out, "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" A black wall of energy shot towards the girl who called out something in a different language and parted the wave with two fingers.

An elated look appeared on the witch's face, "So, you were taught in Azarath!"

"What about it?" Raven asked, guarded.

The girl was practically hopping up and down in excitement; "They say that the magic in Azarath is among the most powerful in all of the universe. Shame that you're all a bunch of pacifists." This last statement earned the girl another wave of dark energy thrown at her. A mischievous look appeared on her face, "Oh, did I strike a nerve?" Raven responded with another dark energy attack.

Cyborg and Robin were confused as they came up against the black haired man. He looked completely disinterested in the situation. As the two charged him, he pulled out a gun and shot at Cyborg who managed to dodge before yelling, "Hey, man! Watch it!" The man ignored him and shot again, which missed. The two came up on him, but he managed to jump out of the way and shot again, hitting Cyborg in the shoulder. In seconds, Cyborg's system started going haywire and he crumbled to the ground. "What's going on?"

The man pushed up his glasses again, "It's obvious, isn't? I short circuited your system."

"With a gun?"

"The gun is merely a means to transport the virus." As the man explained, he failed to watch Robin who came behind and knocked him the ground. The man let go of the case and it fell in front of Robin's feet.

"You guys are done," Robin said as the man got back on his feet. He readjusted his glasses, "What a nuisance!"

At this point all fights had stopped at a stalemate and both sides were about to go at it again when a drawl caught their attention.

"You know, I've never understood why they put such small things into such large suitcases."

Everyone looked up to see a man reclining on top of the wall holding up what looked like a microchip and inspecting it. At first glance, he looked completely out of place. Opposed to all the superhero and criminal getups in front of the lab, the man looked like a civilian. He had black messy hair that fringed at the edges. His clothes were a simply navy jacket, a black undershirt, silver belt, and black pants and shoes. The only thing that stood out was the fact that he was wearing sunglasses in the middle of the night.

Before the Titans could question him, the Tamaranean girl shouted, "Zane! How long have you been here?"

Not bothering to get up and look at the girl, Zane replied, "For about twenty minutes."

The girl was starting to get angry, "And why didn't you show yourself earlier?"

At this, Zane got up and took a crouching position on the wall, "Cuz, I didn't want to ruin your fun." A large, mischievous smile could be plainly seen on his face. The smile seemed to only irritate the girl further as well as the rest of the team, though their irritation was only out of mild annoyance.

The girl flew up to Zane and practically screamed in his ear, "You should have told us that you already had it!"

Zane only stuck his pinkie into his ear, "What's the problem? You're the one who wanted to fight someone. So, I let you."

The girl looked ready to murder the man, but Zane chose to ignore her. He stood up, put the chip in his pocket and said, "Well, it looks like you're done here. Time to go."

The other three simply shrugged and walked towards the two. As they walked, Robin shouted, "Where do you think you're going?"

The geek turned and responded simply, "To base."

As the Titans tried to follow, the witch uttered a spell, which caused a huge explosion. Once the debris was gone, the Titans saw that the group had vanished.

Beast Boy turned back to normal, "Who were those guys?"

They all looked at Robin. "I don't know," he said, "But we're going to find out."

**Well, I hope you liked the first chapter. I thought of this story for a long time so it's gone through a lot of changes, but I think it fits all together now. I'll try to stick with it as much as I can so don't be surprised if it randomly stops and picks up again five months latter. Anyway, please review!**


	2. Chapter 2

**This is surprising. Two chapters in one day? Never happened before. Oh well. Anyway, this story is probably going to move a lot faster than any of my other stories so hopefully I can get it done quicker than my other ones, but with my laziness, who knows. **

Chapter 2: Just One More Problem to Deal With

The Titans returned home that night extremely irritated, especially Robin. While he didn't really get in a fight, he was furious at the fact that that Zane character had swiped the chip right out from underneath him. He'd wipe that smirk off his face one way or another.

The others were fuming over the fight as well. Cyborg was ticked at the fact that the geek guy had completely shut down his system with that crazy gun of his. He immediately went to work on upgrading his system. Beast Boy was jealous of the red head that he fought. While the guy couldn't turn into an animal fully, he could take on attributes of more than one animal, which proved to be very effective as Beast Boy had to constantly change forms in order to keep up wit the fight. The overwhelming positive and giggling witch annoyed Raven. She thought Starfire's optimism was bad enough; this girl was even more so, with a liking towards causing chaos. But she had to admit, the girl was powerful and knew a lot of powerful magic. Starfire was completely confused. While she knew it wasn't Blackfire, the other Tamaranean had reminded her a lot of her older sister and not just in looks. The degrading tone she used for Starfire and her ferocity were very similar, and she was starting to wonder if this was the effect of the Dark Transformation that the girl had mentioned.

Robin immediately went to work on trying to figure out whom they were up against while the others went to nurse their injuries. By the time they came back, they were surprised to find Robin already ready to brief them.

"Friend Robin, you acquired information already?" Starfire asked.

"Yeah, it wasn't all that difficult to find, but their still is some things missing," Robin said turning to the monitor as the rest of the Titans sat, waiting to be briefed.

"The group we're up against is known as the Shadow Team. They are a group of superpowers that take on any mission as long as the pay is good. They work for good and evil alike, but mostly criminal. They've been active for a couple of years now."

A profile of the man that shut down Cyborg appeared on the screen. Cyborg glared at the picture.

"This is Ezio Rico, a.k.a Tech. He is genius in the technology field. He disappeared from his high school in New York a few years ago. He wasn't known to be part of the team until recently, but he has been suspected to be working with them for a long time. He's not much of a fighter, as he usually works behind the scene, but lately he's been more active."

Ezio's picture was replaced with the profile of the witch. Raven stared at the picture.

"This is Circe Hallow, a.k.a Eris. She originally from England where she got her nickname for the chaos she created. She has a broad range of magical knowledge and a decent hand-to-hand fighter. She deemed as someone to stay away from as she has a habit of putting spells on her victims that suit her fancy."

Her picture was replaced with the red head, Beast Boy basically growled at the picture.

"Theo Kokinos, a.k.a. Changeling. Born and raised in Greece, he acquired his powers from what he said was a glowing dog. He can take on the attributes of any animal, real or mythical. He has been seen to be able to take on five attributes at once. His most favored attribute is spitting fire out of his mouth like a dragon."

His picture turned into the Tamaranean.

"This is a Tamaranean who goes by Nebula, but she has been called the Demon by many here. She is the same as Starfire, but apparently takes great pleasure in causing trouble and destruction. She's been deemed a major threat by the hero community."

The picture turned into the face of the last man that they met last night, Zane.

"Shadow Thief Zane," Robin started, "A master thief that showed up from nowhere five years ago. He originally went sole and was deem the best thief in the world besides Phantom Thief Kid. He's know to make impossible heists and very little personal information could be found on him. About two years ago he started the team, and they've causing problems all over the world."

"He's their leader?" Beast Boy asked, all of them surprised at the fact.

Robin nodded, "I was surprised too, but it makes sense. He has contact information for their clients and can in and out anywhere he choses. He may not have seemed like it last night, but he's their leader." Robin paused for a moment. He really was surprised, but it explained why they left once he showed up. He was still trying to figure out how the guy managed to get the chip so easily.

Robin was so wrapped up in his thought that he almost missed the question Beast Boy asked, "What's his eye color?"

"What?"

"His eye color. It has everything about his physical appearance, but his eye color."

"That's because no one knows. He's always seen with those shades of his."

"Just like you wear that mask," Starfire said.

Robin looked at her for a moment, "Yeah, like me."

He hated to admit it, but she was right. He didn't let people sees his eyes nor did Zane. Zane was a complete mystery just like he was aiming to be. He may have friends, but he still kept things from them, like his real identity. Zane didn't let others know his either. The idea of him being similar to someone made him uncomfortable as it reminded him of another someone who he was similar to and he didn't like him any more than he like this Zane guy now.

Robin was shaken from his thoughts when Beast Boy jumped and yelled, "Dudes! I just figured it out!"

All of them looked at their green friend, groaning as he brought out a chalkboard and scribbled a mess on it.

"And this is suppose to be?" Raven asked, dreading the answer.

"Hello!? Isn't it obvious?" Beast Boy asked, "The Shadow Team is us from a parallel universe that switches our personalities around."

He pointed to the chart, "See, look here. Cyborg, a big dude with tech capabilities and a social guy. Ezio, an anti-social geek. Raven, pessimistic, gloomy and a pacifist. Circe, full of energy and causing chaos. Starfire, happy and friendly. Nebula, aggressive and angry. Robin, Mr. Serious. Zane, laid-back."

"I guess that means Theo is smart and funny," Cyborg said.

"Right! Wait, I mean no, he's not," Beast Boy tried to redeem himself as the others laughed.

-00000-

In a run-down hotel, the Shadow Team was doing a similar thing that the Titans were doing. Ezio ran a search on their new adversary. When he discovered what he could, he showed it to the team, who mused over it.

"Looks like we might have a challenge this time around," Theo said, stretching his muscles that were sore from the previous night. The little green dude was a pain in the ass, both as a fighter and the fact that he was an annoying little kid. He wanted to shut the kid up.

The bushy blond that was Circe was bouncing up and down in excitement. She thoroughly enjoyed her fight with Raven. While she loved to cause destruction and mayhem, she loved fighting with powerful spell casters even more. She had always been immersed in magic, and loved to study the magic of her opponents. The idea of being able to study a disciple of an Azar was extremely promising.

Nebula laughed, "I wouldn't mind having another go at the little princess. I'll show that brat who's the stronger Tamaranean." She didn't want to admit it, but the girl was pretty good. However, this only served to anger her more than she already was. She hated the idea of someone being stronger than her, especially a normal Tamaranean.

As Nebula vented to herself, she noticed that Zane hadn't even touch the file on the Titan leader, Robin. Instead, he looked like he was sleeping. _Careless as always._ Suddenly, he got up and made his way to the door.

"Where do you think you're going?" Nebula said in a tone mirroring an accusing wife.

Zane shot her a smirk, "For a drink." He left before she could say another word.

Once Zane left, Nebula huffed and turned her back towards the door. _Fine. Let him run into trouble. It's not my job to watch him._ Just as she thought this, Circe commented, "He'll be fine, Nebula. If he gets in trouble, he can just disappear like he always does."

Nebula turned and snapped, "Stay out of my head!"

Circe just shrugged, "I'm an empathic. Can't help it."

"Leave her alone, Neb. She's not a lightning rod for your temper, none of us are," Theo stated, "Besides, being a nagging wife won't help you two."

Nebula rooted on the spot for two reasons: anger because he had dared to say that to her and embarrassment because he was right. She decided to shrug it off, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course you don't."

Nebula ignored the comment and went back to studying their opponent. They needed to know whom they were going up against if they were to finish the job.

-00000-

On the edge of the city was an abandoned building that held no sign of life. Despite this, the building was in turn full of active. A large spy network was being conducted and messages ran to and fro inside by a handful of hired men. Over looking the operation was a large man who sat in the shadows.

A young woman walked into the room and stopped beside the man. "Sir," she started, "I've just received word that Zane has gone out into the city on his own."

The man thought for a moment. While the Shadow Thief Zane wasn't a hero by any means, he did have a notorious reputation for, in some cases, indirectly undermining a criminal operation or screwing it up completely. The Titans were already a problem; he didn't need another one.

"Send Snake after him. The moment he starts tampering with our operation, even if indirectly, I want him out of the picture and his team as well."

"Understood, Sir," the woman bowed and walked out the room.

**Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Kind of short, I know, but it helps to set up the rest of the story. Please review!**

**Disclaimer – I don't own the Teen Titans.**


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